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Short Story: A Door's Tale
The following story was written by me, waZelda. It is very loosely based on real events that took place sometime in May 2013, but what inspired me to write it was when I moved into a new apartment and first met a door that was way too eager to close. In case you are wondering, I would be the one that is referred to as the tardy one. I trust that you can tell what is real and what is fiction. Beware that some of the content in the story might be considered disturbing and weird. Enjoy. A Door's Tale Nick was a door, and he was proud of it. Specifically he was a door on a train cart for the metro in Oslo. Others would call it a second rate job, but Nick found great purpose in his job. It gave him plenty of opportunity to do what he liked the best - to close. To Nick, closing was not just the small joy that made his existence worthwhile, it was what gave him purpose and made him feel good about himself. There was nothing quite as rewarding as seeing someone start sprinting fifty meters away, hear the female voice say "dørene lukkes" and then close right in front of their faces and watch them pull their hair in frustration as the train accelerated, leaving them behind. Nick's parents always wanted him to get a fancier job like being the swing door of a hotel. The very idea still made Nick shake with fury. Those swing doors were elitist scum and a shame to all doorkind. When did they close? They did not, they just remained open - slowing people down at best. Other doors kept telling Nick that it was not as important to close as it was to open - and that they actually enjoyed opening more than they enjoyed closing. At that point, Nick would tell them they were wrong, and he would not accept them telling him "Just because my oponion differs from yours, it doesn't mean that I am wrong". Yes it did! Nick knew it. They knew it. If your preferred opening, then you had misunderstood your purpose in life. You had missed the very essence of what it meant to be a door. In the yin/yang relationship between opening and closing, opening was just the necessary evil that made it possible to later close. Nick told them that if people wanted the doors to be open, they would not have doors at all, just holes in the wall. Some tried to be clever by counter-arguing that if people wanted doors to be closed all the time then they would just have walls, but Nick knew they were just desperate. If closing was not the ultimate task of a door, then why would there be closing at all? They would reply that Nick had to close to "protect passengers from wind" or "ensure the safety of the people on board", to which Nick would reply that now they were just making things up. No, Nick was a door who knew his place in the world and he was both happy and proud to serve society the way he was supposed to. On this particular day, Nick was in a really foul mood. He had spent the first half of the day on the wrong side of the train. On that side he only opened on a few, selected stations, and there had been so few people on those stations that he had not even had anyone to close for. This was particularly frustrating since it was raining outside, and if there was one thing that made denying people entry into the train better, it was to leave those suckers out in the rain. Nick had no sympathy for them. Their tardiness showed a fundamental lack of respect for the train company. They deserved to sit in the rain for hours and then accidentally board the wrong train and waste even more of their worthless time. Still, Nick was an optimist, so as he finally approached another station where the boarding platform was between the tracks, he had hope that he would once again get the satisfaction of fulfilling his sacred duty. As the train was decelerating, he saw someone start running. The guy was really far away and there was no way he would make it. Nick thanked the heaven that he would finally get some satisfaction. However the guy was so far away that he eventually gave up and slowed to a walk. Nick sighed on the inside. There was no fun in closing for someone who had given up. His joy came from watching hope turn to desperation and then to disappointment, frustration and anger as people realized they had to wait fifteen more minutes to leave the station. Still, Nick tried to take some joy in it, given what a slow day he was having. The voice said "dørene lukkes" and Nick was ready to do his job. Then something truly dreadful happened. A passenger - one of those filthy teenagers - walked over to Nick, spread out his arms and stopped Nick from closing. Words could not describe the fury Nick was experiencing. The disrespect of people being late was one thing, but the blasted sympathisers that went so far as to actively stop him in his job... They made Nick sick to his circuits. The tardy one had not even noticed yet, he just kept on walking as Nick's rage grew in direct proportion with time. All the other doors had finished their jobs, only Nick had been halted. The conductor spoke into the radio, taking Nick's side and telling the sympathiser to stop being a dick (although not with those exact words), but the guy did not listen. Finally the late-comer noticed and started running, but he did not even have the decency to run as fast as before. Instead he slowly jogged onto the platform, not considering that every second that passed was a valuable second of the train company's time being wasted. Nick had had it. He would not let them defeat him. He mustered all his strength and all his anger and just as the guy was about to enter he slammed shut, cutting the fingers off the sympathiser. Some of the blood splashed on the late-comers face, leaving him in shock. The sympathiser screamed as people came to to help stop his bleeding. Nick just laughed maniacally on the inside. He had been victorious. Justice had been served. Just when he thought his day could not get any worse it had taken a turn for the better. The tardy one kept standing there as the rain wiped the blood off his face. That day no one exited the cart through Nick. No one knows exactly what happened to Nick. The train company had to pay millions in law suits and according to them they "fixed" him. No one knew if they had brainwashed him beyond he point of recognition or if they threw him away. In modern and more opening-oriented circles the story was considered a tragedy, bringing shame to all of doorkind, but among traditionalists Nick was soon recognized as a martyr and the tales of his sacrifice went from door to door through the entire city. Some even suggested making him a saint, but for that he was way too controversial. He became a causionary tale to all passengers, as their conductors would tell them that if they held the doors they did it at their own risk. Maybe Nick was still out there, just begging for a new chance to slice a hand in half. Category:Short story Category:Comedy Category:By waZelda